As a regular school in Texas, for half a year turned into a prison

Until 1999, there were no metal detectors and policemen in American schools. Everything changed after Columbine. The outline опубликовал College graduate recollections of how shooting 1999 at the other end of the country changed the lives of several thousand American schoolchildren and students in a quiet city in Texas.

Allen High School, 2006. Photo: Wikimedia Commons, public domain

I was 16 years old when, in 1999, two teenagers carried guns, pistols and improvised bombs to Columbine School in Central Colorado. They killed 13 people, injured 24, and then committed suicide. At that moment, I lived in Texas and could not even imagine how shooting 660 miles from home would affect my life.

The city of Allen with a population of less than 100 000 people were considered one of the safest in the country. To me, he seemed obscenely boring. I was a hairy teenager, did not recognize clothes of other colors, except black, and in the classroom, instead of listening to the teacher, read books. Then I did not understand how beautiful that time was.

The next day after the tragedy at Columbine, I went to class as if nothing had happened. I did not know that we would not finish this school year. I did not know that they would report to the police station over and over again about the bombs being planted, that this would cause panic in the whole city, schools would be evacuated, and we would almost forget about the former quiet life.

Two days after Columbine, the leadership of the Curtis High School in Allen gathered all the students in one classroom.

We were forbidden to wear black, wear T-shirts with images of Marilyn Manson and long coats

Because those who made the shooting at Columbine did the same. This was the end of April 1999 of the year - the time when adults became terribly afraid of teenagers.

Eight evacuations in 20 days

26 April. On this day, an anonymous line earned in the city, where you could complain about something suspicious.

29 April. The hotline received the first report about a bomb allegedly planted in one of the school buses. This time of year in Texas is usually humid and hot. According to the regulations, hundreds of children were evacuated from school. They stood in the empty field next door, sweating under the sun and handing each other mobile phones to connect with their families. The bomb report turned out to be a lie. Police found callers and arrested them.

“We followed the official procedure: if we received a message about a bomb, we first evacuated the entire building and then searched it. This procedure guaranteed security, but caused chaos and panic, ”says Tim Carroll, a public relations spokesman for the Allen school district.

11 May. After an anonymous call about a threat that turned out to be false, the primary school was evacuated.

12 May. The same elementary school was evacuated again - after the next bell. They decided to take the children to a local college, but as soon as they got off the buses, the police were informed that the college was mined. The authorities had to evacuate him.

That day the patience of parents and schoolchildren overflowed. Children - and I among them - began to skip lessons, because they no longer felt safe in the walls of the school. Parents demanded a reaction from the authorities, although no one really knew what it should be.

14 May. After 11, false reports about bombs and eight evacuations in schools announced the end of the school year. True, a few days later they changed their mind. We were offered to return to the last two weeks of half a year to pass exams. They remained mandatory. Of course, almost all of this idea was ignored.

Exception for protest

“It was absolutely clear to me that scratching everyone with the same brush and introducing such measures had no reason,” said Jennifer Boccia, a college student at the time. After the meeting, she decided to protest - and came to school with a simple black armband.

The management of the school reacted predictably emotionally. Jennifer was summoned to the director, forced to remove the bandage, and for his refusal they threatened to remove him from his studies. In response, she contacted the American Union for the Protection of Civil Liberties and told all about the press.

Then the school management offered the girl to remove the record about the suspension from her personal business in exchange for a public apology. The girl refused - and wrote about it in the local newspaper. The American Civil Liberties Union accused the school of violating the first amendment to the Constitution and sued it. The case was won, and the line on suspension from employment was removed from Boccia's personal file.

School-fortress, school-prison

After Columbine, American society was divided into two camps: those who said that schools were crazy about safety, and those who were ready to justify any actions for the sake of feeling that their children were not in danger.

The new college campus, where we returned to study in August, was completely different from the old one. A building in the suburbs of Texas looked like a huge stone monster and more like a fortress. Metal detectors appeared at the entrance and video surveillance cameras in the corridors. The building was patrolled by armed police, they stopped the children and searched the bags.

To distract suspicion from ourselves, we wore things in mesh or transparent backpacks.

Drawers with personal belongings, we no longer relied. To get into the building, I had to stand in line at the metal detector for an hour. Believe me, you would not want to send your children to such a school.

“For us, 17-year-olds, the new order turned into shock. I felt like a criminal and all the time I thought that we should not be treated like this, ”says one of the former students.

“We did a lot for the safety of students, but we didn’t treat them as those who need to be protected, but as those from whom we need to protect ourselves,” said Jill Bloomberg, director of the Park Slope College in Brooklyn.

The teachers were also in an equivocal position. They were taught to recognize bombs and weapons. They were supposed to search the students along with the police. But the teachers themselves were also searched at the entrance to the campus. None of these measures met expectations.

One of the students managed to bring a knife to school - and boasted it in front of the teacher

It got to the point of absurdity: especially desperate, in order to annoy the scouts, brought live kittens into the pockets.

Fortunately for the students, the experiment did not last long: by the end of the school year, the school authorities decided that the maintenance of the metal detectors was too expensive, and abandoned them. Now, almost two decades later, everything is forgotten, like a bad dream.

But in other cities this did not happen. Increased security measures and zero tolerance to everything that could threaten her have become the norm over the years. In 1997, in an American school worked 13 order of thousands of police officers. By 2003, their number had increased by almost seven thousand.

Heart-to-heart talk and sympathy are more efficient than metal detectors

The effectiveness of metal detectors in schools not confirmed research. But according to the American Social Health Association, such technologies change Students' perception of safety and how to achieve it.

Höser Schworths of the American non-profit organization RAND (Research and Development), together with colleagues found outthat the reputation of schools suffers from the use of security equipment. “They are not needed to protect, but to create the appearance that the school is an impregnable fortress,” says Schworts. In her opinion, a healthy climate in the school team and a friendly, trusting environment is much more effective in fighting aggression.

To the same conclusion came in Chicago. Here are considering a bill stating that schools need to allocate grants for collaboration with mental health professionals. This will help recognize the aggression in its infancy and prevent tragedy before the potential criminal tries to do anything at all, according to the report of the American Psychological Association.

Unfortunately, not everyone believes in the power of psychiatric care. Talking heart-to-heart and in time shown sympathy is not considered by many to be the solution to the problem. It seems to us that only metal detectors and police around the school’s perimeter can guarantee security. In fact, they only sow fear and panic. Those who studied in Allen in the 1999 year were convinced of this.

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